Cosmic Love
by Kireteiru
Summary: "Then I heard your heart beating, you were in the darkness, too / So I stayed in the darkness with you." – Florence the Machine, "Cosmic Love" (Lungs). Commandant/f!Sparrow. M for a reason.


Title: Cosmic Love  
Author: Kireteiru  
Fandom: Fable (2, to be specific)  
Rating: M  
Warnings: graphic m/f, violence, language  
Pairings: Commandant/fem!Sparrow  
Summary: "Then I heard your heart beating, you were in the darkness, too / So I stayed in the darkness with you." – Florence + the Machine, "Cosmic Love" (_Lungs_).

* * *

A/N: We interrupt your regularly scheduled _Halo_ fanfiction for a brief (brief my ass) recess into _Fable._

* * *

I couldn't tell you how it started. Actually, I could, but why should I try to explain something that cannot be understood? I don't understand it myself. He was my enemy, he was my opponent, he was Lucien's main henchman, he was –

Everything my husband was not. I spent years in the Tattered Spire, ten to be precise. By the time I left, most of my life had passed me by. My husband had died of a plague that swept the land. The son I left behind – raised by Theresa and Hammer – was a stranger to me, as was the land. The Spire had become my whole world. It had become all too easy to see why Lucien had been driven mad by it – well, madd_er_.

Yet, there was one thing that kept me sane throughout my tenure there. It wasn't Garth. It wasn't the fading echoes of Theresa's voice or the encouragement given to me by Hammer before I got on that ship.

It was a monster, pale-skinned and horned, a devil made flesh. The first time I saw the Commandant, that was what I thought of him: that he was more beast than man, no matter how human he may have looked. When I learned what he had done to the previous recruits placed under his command, that view was reinforced. Yet there was some part of me that insisted he was only doing this because he had to, that there was about as much love between Lucien and him as there was between Lucien and me. That he was just as much a slave as I had become.

Only he hadn't had a choice. I could have gone on with my life, forgotten about the rest of Albion and lived happily ever after in my little farm in Brightwood. I could have watched my son grow up in about as much peace as it would have been possible to have then. If any bandits had attacked, I could have taken up my sword or gun or even slain them with magic, and life would have gone on as it had before.

But I went to the Spire.

He was the first "person" I saw after waking up from the enchanted sleep Lucien put myself and the other recruits into after we arrived. Well, maybe not the actual first person-but he was the first with some real life to him. The other guards were all broken in spirit-by him, no doubt-or just as crazy as the prisoners who were building the Spire. It was hard to say who preferred less.

He told me later that I left a very _strange_ first impression. No one had ever refused to submit to his will as long as I had, it seems. The others had all gone quietly in the end. I had refused to the point of being knocked unconscious by the collar he used to control the guards. That intrigued him-he wanted to know what made me so determined to resist.

Months passed. Wherever I went, I felt him watching me, observing everything I did, even bathroom breaks I took. At first, that made me feel embarrassed about my body-what with all of my time spent fighting or learning magic, my skin was crisscrossed with scars. Some were faint lines, others thick and knotted ropes of puckered flesh. Some were even from the Crucible that enabled me to come to the Spire. Then there were the glowing blue lines that named me as a Will user. No ordinary citizen of Bowerstone had marks like those. While not unattractive, they tended to give away my location in the dark, even if they were handy for finding my way.

The first time he touched me without intent to harm, was when we wound up in the showers at the same time on accident. I didn't even know he showered before that. I was standing under the spray in one of the stalls at the far end of the communal showers when I sensed him enter. I could always tell where he was even with the Spire clouding my perception of the mainland, or even the Spire's other residents if they were far enough away from me. He approached me from behind, no doubt entirely aware of the fact that I knew he was there and was completely uncomfortable in his presence. Not even a day earlier, he had tried to force me to kill one of my fellow guards, Bob, the man who had come with me on the same boat to the Spire. I had refused, of course, but Bob had died anyway, and at the Commandant's own hand, no less. I wanted nothing to do with him so soon after the incident, but it was not to be.

I felt a cold hand brush a ropy scar on my shoulder. I managed to stop myself from trying to attack him with magic, but at the expense of letting myself flinch at his touch. "How did you come by this?" he asked, voice low so that it would not carry.

"Bandits," I replied, and left it at that.

He wasn't willing to let me get away so easily. "Bandits?" he repeated, a trace of amusement seeping into his tone as his finger followed the scar its full length. "Did you kill them?"

"What's it to you? Sir?"

"I must confess, with your refusal to obey orders, I would have thought you a softhearted pacifist had you not completed the Crucible to get here." Now, a bit of steel entered his voice, commanding me to answer. "Did you kill them?"

I debated silently for a second, then admitted, "Yes."

His low chuckle made me shiver. "And?"

"It didn't do anything for me, if that's what you're asking." I rubbed some soap on my washcloth and scrubbed at my arms. We were allowed baths only once a week, so I was filthy. Granted, it used to be that I almost never took a bath, so many years ago. So much water and food still was a luxury.

I sensed more than saw his smirk. "Believe what you like." Then he left me alone to attend to his own toilet.

It was almost a full month before I saw him again. The monotony of guarding the prisoners was wearing on me, as was trying to hide the food I was sneaking them. Sometimes I was able to converse a little with Garth, but the Commandant – or perhaps even Lucien himself, the crazy bastard – seemed to realize that the other Will user was my reason for coming to the Spire. The times I was assigned to guard him were few and far between.

"Recruit 273."

Now that I finally saw him again, I wondered what sort of affliction I had acquired to make me miss him. "Sir," I said, still managing to make the term of respect sound like an insult.

I couldn't tell if he looked better or worse than the last time I saw him. He seemed forever unchanging. "Recruit 303 will relieve you in one hour. Lord Lucien-" The way he said the man's name made me sure that the Commandant hated him, even if it wasn't quite as much as I did. "-wants you to take over guarding one of the worksites. Come to my office after he arrives."

"Sir." I nodded to show that I understood. He turned on his heel and left. I promptly resumed slipping food to the prisoners, taken from my own breakfast. I knew that he knew that I was doing it, and he knew that I knew that he knew. Even if he tried to deter me, I would still keep doing it. I was determined to not lose my soul while in the Spire. Perhaps moving me to one of the worksites was Lucien's attempt to break me. After all, it would be harder for me to give them food, sing soft songs under the watchfulness of the other guards.

I had grown used to the Commandant watching me from afar, but it was a little disconcerting for it to happen up-close. I must have stood in front of his desk for a turn of the glass before he saw fit to quit staring at me and give me my assignment. I knew that he was studying me –looking for signs of weakness, perhaps?- but I refused to give him the satisfaction of letting the wear on my spirit show.

Barely a week at the worksite, and I was sent back to guarding prisoners. I had been unable to slip food to the workers, so someone must have taken it as submission (not that it was). My first day back, and I was sent to watch over Garth.

[Welcome back, Sparrow,] he said to me through our telepathic connection, [How was the worksite?]

[A craphole,] I replied, [but did we really expect any better?]

He chuckled softly.

[Garth, I think I'm going mad,] I told him, [The other day I caught myself missing the Commandant.]

[The Spire does strange things to people,] he said sagely.

[But the _Commandant?_]

[Like I said. Strange things.]

I felt _his_ eyes on me, then. I turned to search – he was on the other side of the Spire, across the hollow center that plunged down, down, down to sea level. Something in me wanted to bridge that impossible, impassable gulf, reach out to him – though to do what, I knew not. [What _is_ the Commandant?] I asked Garth, never taking my eyes off the being in question as he continued up higher into the Spire, [I've never seen anything like him before.]

[That's because he and his ilk are not natural beings,] said the Hero of Will, meditating inside his cell, [He was created by Lucien, by inserting pieces of the Spire into a human being. I saw it done. To him, in fact. He was the first success Lucien had in that endeavor.]

My head snapped around. I had no words for my shock, my horror. How could that crazed Fairfax do something like that to another human being? Then I remembered that he was not in his right mind. It probably seemed perfectly logical to him. I turned back to look at the Commandant, but he had disappeared from my sight. But now at least I knew why he was not as loyal a soldier as he appeared to be. [Did he have a name?] I asked.

[If he did, I do not know it.]

* * *

A year passed before we spoke again. We saw one another, in passing, but never actually stopped to speak until the fourth anniversary of my arrival in the Spire. He called me to his office, sending another recruit to replace me in guarding the prison cells. It was Recruit 404, probably one of the worst people to pass the Crucible ever. He was nasty and cruel like none other save Lucien himself. As I sprinted toward the Commandant's office, I wondered if his goal was to force me to submit so that I could return to the cells faster and get him away from the prisoners.

I was unsure which was the lesser of the evils, in this case – submit and lose my fire, my spirit, but protect those people from 404, or defy the Commandant and let them suffer under 404's hand until I recovered.

He was standing with his back to the door when I entered, hands clasped behind his back. There was silence for a moment, then he said, "Your behavior has been above reproach as of late." He neglected to mention my sneaking food to the prisoners and trying to lighten their spirits. "Have you had a change of heart?"

"There haven't been any orders worth defying directly," I said, then added insultingly, "Sir."

He let out a brief snort of laughter. That sound sent a strange tingle down my spine. Morbid though it may have been, he still had a sense of humor, and something in me delighted in making him laugh. It told me that under the guise of a monster, there was still something human inside him.

The Commandant turned back to look at me. His white eyes narrowed briefly, then he advanced on me. I stood my ground. I didn't show how fast my heart was beating, or how afraid I was. He was armed, I was not. He could use magic (if he had any), I could not (without enduring excruciating pain that rendered the effort worthless). He could cut me down at any moment.

And though I would never admit it, not even to my own dog, I was afraid to die. I wanted to stay alive, see my family, and return peace to Albion, but most of all, I simply wanted to live.

"Four years."

I frowned. "What?"

"It's been four years since you were placed under my command." I couldn't see it, but I could tell he was smirking when next he spoke. "You're the only one who's lasted this long."

I did not show how much that statement angered me. I knew very well how many recruits had been broken before and after me, I knew how many had died at his hands. But I was still here. Even when I was beaten black and blue for defying orders before I got better at being sneaky, I stubbornly held on.

He must have seen something in my eyes, a flare of fire, because his smirk widened behind his high collar. "Such spirit… I wonder what I would take to break you?" His rough fingers brushed over my cheek. His skin was still so cold. I did not flinch. I said nothing. "I suppose it doesn't matter right now," he said at last, "You're behaving yourself, and I can't kill you without cause. Pity."

He stepped back. I let out an inaudible sigh of relief as he turned to head back to his desk. He rustled through one of the drawers, and pulled out – a bottle? And two pints? "A toast," he said, and threw one of the glasses at me. The years in the Spire had not dulled my reflexes; I caught it with ease, though I was surprised at the force behind it. Had he been intending to catch me off guard, make me drop it, and then punish me for breaking it?

The Commandant poured some of the liquid into his own glass, then gestured for me to come closer so he could pour some into mine. I was hesitant, and gave him a suspicious look. "It's not poisoned," he said, catching on to my concern, "I'm much more interested in stretching that inner fire of yours to the limit. For that, I need you alive."

At least he was being honest, even if I didn't like the reasons behind it.

The alcohol was strong – it went down my throat like fire. My face puckered before I could stop it. I heard him chuckle at my expense. The liquid settled heavily in my belly and sent tendrils of warmth through my abdomen. I blinked rapidly to clear my watering eyes, and heard him swallow back his own glass without flinching. "I never imagined you were a lightweight," he said, setting his glass back on his desk. It was made of the same stone as the Spire, I noticed, not dark wood as I had originally thought.

Before I could stop myself, my eyes flashed with anger, and I bared my teeth at him. The alcohol was already loosening my control over myself, and my naturally fiery self was slipping through the cracks.

He poured me another glass. I drank this one down without pause – now that I knew what to expect, I was able to do so without flinching. Even so, it was strong stuff. My vision had begun to blur at the edges, my reaction times slowing. Typical effects of alcohol, I knew, but to have come on so fast… "What is this stuff?" I asked him.

"A new type of drink that commoners are calling 'absinthe' because of what it is made from." He tipped another glass back. "It's stronger than drinks like whiskey and the imported drink 'vodka.'" As usual, he didn't appear the slightest bit affected. "Congratulations, 273. Back to your post."

I managed to keep my stride straight and even until I was out of sight of the doors. Then I slumped against the wall of the Spire and breathed. I already felt sick. I finally remembered the reason I hated going drinking with James and the boys.

Garth noticed right away that I wasn't myself when I returned to guarding his cell, along with the prisoners next to him. Four-oh-four didn't notice anything, but the moment he was gone, I sank to the ground next to the Hero of Will's cell and leaned back against the wall.

[What did the Commandant want?]

Even though he was making an effort to keep his voice quiet, it rang in my head. I groaned softly, then whimpered, [Four-year anniversary of my arrival in the Spire, placement under him. Wanted to "congratulate" me.]

The Will user said nothing further, simply sat with me as I waited out the effects.

* * *

At five years, my "congratulations" were much the same. I had become convinced that this was another way of testing me to the breaking point. This time the Commandant allowed me a third glass. I knew that by this point I was swaying on my feet – the ground felt like it was rolling beneath me. If I didn't sit down, I was going to fall down, and brain myself against the side of his desk. My skull would crack open, and I would bleed to death all over his floor.

"Well, we can't have that, now can we?"

I only realized that I had spoken aloud when he pushed me to sit on the edge of said desk. The sudden change made me squeeze my eyes shut and breathe as I struggled not to vomit all over his floor instead. I could feel him watching me. "Quit laughing at me," I managed, "Not all of us can be superhumanly awesome and chug whole bottles of booze without flinching."

He snorted, then chuckled a bit. "You think I'm 'awesome?'"

"With stuff like that-" I waved at the alcohol. "-yeah. Picking up women and stuff is a different matter."

"What? You think I couldn't woo someone, looking like this?"

Dangerous territory. Even as drunk as I was, I recognized the signs that I was toeing a fine line between amusement and anger on his part. "I never said that," I grunted, "I just meant that it wouldn't be easy. I'm sure you'd do a fine job if the Boss from Hell would let you out to play with people now and then."

He snorted louder this time. And just like that, we were back in amusement. "I think I'll let that one slide," he said, sitting down in his chair and leaning on one arm.

"Much obliged," I said sarcastically, "I'd hate to get myself killed before you've had your fun." I turned to look at him, but the hand I braced against the desk wound up on top of some papers. They slipped, and I fell, landing heavily on the desk. By the time I managed to reorient myself, the Commandant's laughter had wound down into silent, shoulder-shaking chuckles. I scowled sharply but held my tongue, barely. Then I noticed exactly how close I was to him, how I could now see every faint line on his face (what little of it I could see over his collar), the shards of the Spire driven into his skull, even the tiniest of threads in his clothes.

He was much more handsome up close.

I did not just think that. I did _not_ just think that.

The Commandant seemed to have noticed our closeness, too, because his chuckles stopped and he watched me with his unfathomable milky white eyes. For a long moment, we stared at one another, unsure of what to do. Then he said, "Back to your post, 273."

Instantly sober, I righted myself and left.

Garth was waiting for me in his cell (Where did you expect him to be? Said the part of me that spoke with the Commandant's voice, Walking his dog?). I wasn't sure if I wanted to tell him what had just transpired, or that I had thought the Commandant (the _Commandant_) to be attractive. In his own way.

I slammed my head back against the wall and stared up toward the top of the Spire, ignoring the Will user's silent demand for an explanation. I supposed that if you were willing to think that rough skin like that extended to _other_ areas on his body (_stop it_) there was definitely a potential for an "interesting" _session_ (_dammit_ _**I am not thinking this**_) even if he wasn't in proportion with the rest of his body (_I'm not wondering what he's like, I'm not wondering what he's like, __**I'm not**__)_. And however biting his personality, there _was_ a human somewhere in there, even if it was just the dregs of one (_**no,**__ he's a __**monster**_). He had good taste in alcohol, at least (_okay, I'll give you that, but that doesn't make up for the rest of him_).

_Goddammit!_ I was not falling in love (_love like with James? More like in lust_) with the Commandant!

* * *

The next few months that passed were quiet. And awkward. Every time our eyes met for whatever reason, we both remembered that moment in his office and looked away quickly. Both of us soon mastered the art of looking _through_ rather than at one another, but it didn't help. Now that the tension was there, it wasn't going to go away so easily.

And neither of us was sure who would give first.

It was both of us, in the end. The same way this all began, I was showering, he was coming in, and we looked at one another – and then he was under the spray with me, my fingers tearing at his remaining clothes as his teeth (sharpened or replaced with Spire shards?) scraped at my breasts. There were some more spikes on the edges of his forearms – I gouged a hand on one, trying to get him naked. His hands pushed me away briefly, just long enough to tear off the rest of his clothes. Then the Commandant was back, lifting me up and pressing me against the wall so that I was at the right height-

I slammed my head back against the stone wall of the shower as he penetrated me, my hands snapping up to muffle my scream of mixed pleasure and agony. It seemed that I was right – he was rough everywhere. His skin scraped against the insides of my thighs as I wrapped my legs around his waist. He withdrew almost all the way, then drove back into me with what some would call excessive force. A sandpapery hand groped at one of my breasts, the other braced above me against the wall. I gasped through my hands, whimpering when he flicked my nipple with a finger, then pinched and twisted.

He wasn't gentle, not by any stretch of the imagination, but until then I hadn't realized that I was more than a little masochistic. The pain only added to my pleasure, making me squirm and writhe against him, pulling him deeper and meeting every drive of his powerful hips. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders, digging my fingers into the flesh of his back. I clenched around him when the change in angle made him slam against something that set a bolt of pleasure through me.

The Commandant grunted in satisfaction and drove himself harder and faster into me, making me bury my face in his shoulder to muffle my screams. "Almost," I gasped, feeling the knot of pleasure in my stomach getting tighter and tighter, "Almost…!" I bit his shoulder to muffle my cry of release, my teeth barely marking his skin. I was only vaguely aware of his subsequent completion, high as a kite with my climax.

* * *

We hardly knew what to do with one another after that. No one noticed our awkwardness around each other – we both were too good of actors to let them – and if Lucien knew anything, he wasn't saying or doing anything about it. He and I fell back into old habits – thinly veiled insults, disobeying orders, verbal sparring – but there was still tension between us. And when it grew to be too much…

Well. There was a repeat of our shower session, just wherever we happened to be.

The most memorable round for me, besides the first, was the last. We were in his office, him sitting in his chair and me riding him, my hands gripping the back of his chair to steady myself as I moved. His hand were on my hips, his grip tight as he bore most of my weight, his tongue tracing the Will lines that zigzagged over my chest. It was not nearly as rough as the rest of him, but the friction felt good.

One of his hands slipped from my waist down to where we were joined, teasing my folds. I bit my lip to keep from gasping aloud – there were guards outside the door, and sound carried in the Spire. As always, he was watching me ride him, his white eyes half-lidded with pleasure. I held his gaze with my own, slamming myself down onto him as I pursued our release. It rushed over me with the force of a flash flood, taking me by surprise and dragging me under its current. "Commandant," I gasped out, managing to keep myself moving until he met his own climax.

There was a long moment of silence as we fought to catch our breath.

"William."

I lifted my head from his shoulder to look at him, my head tilted.

"That was my name," he clarified.

My eyes widened slightly in surprise. Then I smiled softly, sadly. "Will?" I asked. He nodded, and I kissed him. It wasn't the first time we locked lips, but it _was_ the first time we didn't try to bit one another's lips off in a flurry of passion. The tenderness was new and strange to both of us. After a beat, we separated, and returned to our duties.

That was the last time we were together. Barely three weeks later (not nearly long enough for us to succumb to the temptation to make love again), Garth gathered enough strength to remove his collar and mine. But during that interim, I learned something, something that made me afraid for my future. And I knew that I had to get out of the Spire before my secret became widely known.

With a sword and rifle taken from the guard Garth killed, I fought my way to the Commandant's office with the Hero of Will in tow. He knew I was coming, knew that sending me to find that guard would mean we would have to fight one another. He had been watching Garth's slowly growing strength just as I had and knew that this day in Albion would be his last.

I locked my heart away during that fight. I refused to let myself feel anything as I chipped away at my lover's defenses with magic and steel . He was fighting his hardest, he was strong – but I was stronger. I charged my sword with fireball magic and drove it through him, shattering his sword in the process. I knew right away that I had struck a fatal blow, that he was going to die here, soon, paralyzed with the stench of cooked flesh filling his nose (and he did have one behind that collar of his).

His legs collapsed out from under him, dragging us both to the ground. I pulled the sword from his chest and tossed it away, only now aware of the tears that had been sliding down my face throughout the entire battle. I crawled up his body to look into his eyes. "Are you happy?" I whispered, just loud enough for him to hear. Garth, recovered, was opening up a cullis gate on the other side of the room. "You've broken me."

He didn't say anything, but I just knew that even though he had reached his goal, he would have been more satisfied if he hadn't. Not like this.

I grasped one of his hands, squeezing gently. He squeezed back. Then I lifted my shirt just enough and laid his hand on my belly, so that he could feel what I had noticed just a scant two weeks before. I saw his eyes widen, the first true expression of surprise I had ever seen on his face. More air than tone, he managed, "Sparrow…" And then he passed away.

There was no time to grieve. By the time Garth finished opening the cullis gate, there were guards trying to beat down the door. I folded the Commandant's (William's) hands over the handle of his sword and straightened his body. At the other Will user's questioning glance, I said, "He was one of Lucien's men, but he was a good warrior." I clenched a fist. "The people building the Spire aren't the only ones who have suffered here."

We left quickly, and met up with Theresa on the mainland. I got the impression that she knew my secret, but I was too busy silently grieving to care. I was barely able to muster up the appropriate enthusiasm to greet Hammer, much less care what others thought about my choice of bedmates.

When Lucien attacked us all on the hilltop, after I collected Reaver (that poor girl in the caverns-I hated what I had to do, but I was further along in my pregnancy then and I couldn't afford to die in childbirth), my only thought was for the safety of the child in my womb. My other-elder-child was safe with Theresa, wherever she had scurried off to. Lucien hadn't thought that it was possible for his "creations" to sire children and so made the mistake of shooting for my head.

If he really wanted to make sure that I wouldn't try to stop him, he should have aimed for my stomach, to make me lose the baby.

When Theresa told me what the Spire could do for me-bring all those I loved back to life-I would have taken that route in a heartbeat. But that meant that the Commandant would still be the Commandant (no longer William, never again). Even if I brought him back, he would still be suffering. The people of Albion would never see him as I did –a man in the guise of a monster.

So I chose sacrifice.

I almost screamed at Theresa when she asked me if I was sure. Yes, yes, I was! Now, do it quickly before I changed my mind!

And then we all parted ways, and I was left alone. My son, Logan, was a stranger to me, as I said before. He was elated to learn that he had a sibling on the way, even if she would look different than other people as I thought was a distinct possibility.

But Rose was born happy, healthy, normal. Indeed, she seemed stronger and-well, better than her half-brother.

About a month after she was born, we were all living in Bowerstone Castle, formerly Fairfax Castle, when a messenger arrived, bearing the news that a strange ship had appeared on the horizon. I couldn't tell you what I expected when I raced down to the docks. A ghost ship certainly wasn't it. There was no crew, no sign of its origin or intended destination, so I reluctantly allowed some of the castle guard to search it, weapons at the ready. My men reported that there was nothing onboard but a coffin, sealed with magic.

I instantly knew who was inside it. I kept myself composed long enough to see the coffin removed from the ship and entombed in the mausoleum at Bowerstone Castle before returning to my room and breaking down. I thanked Theresa for sending me the Commandant's body – I cursed her for opening up the wounds his death had caused. I screamed. I wept. I threw things and trashed my room, terrifying the servants.

But at last, I was the new Queen of Albion once again.

I do not know if I will ever tell Rose the truth about her father. I do not know if I could ever bring myself to admit it to her. But what I will tell her is that however strange and twisted it may have been, I _did_ love him. Even if I was the one to take his life.

Sometimes, when you love something, you have to let it go.

* * *

A/N: Dafuq did I just write? o/ / /O


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